The shooting of nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., has prompted righteous outrage and incomparable grief. Black people were targeted and slain after extending grace and hospitality to a heartless white supremacist who allegedly killed them in one of the nation’s most storied black institutions. Weeks later, our hearts are still heavy.
Black churches like Mother Emanuel were founded against a backdrop of white racist terror. And so-called Christians whitewashed theology with anti-black racism, which is the reason some slave masters cited the Bible to support chattel slavery. It’s also the reason some white pastors organized church services so that black parishioners were physically separated from white church members during...
Philosophy
Dear recent gradu-queer and any queer on the struggle bus,
Welcome to this shit show called adulthood! (If anyone tells you adulthood is not some kind of a shit show, I give you permission to bite them on the nose for lying.)
Perhaps you've recently bid farewell to some university or college, with or without your sanity, self-esteem, and/or personal values. Or, perhaps, you've long ago hung up your cap and gown, or you left "higher" education without the pomp and circumstance. Or, maybe you never fit quite neatly into the post-high school narrative.
Somewhere in any and all of these options, you're supposed to have found a job or degree, and the world makes you feel worthless if you don't have either or both. It's fascinating how in the blink of an eye, people stop asking you...
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Should there be religion? If you are a good person, does nothing wrong to your brothers and sisters, loving, respects your elders, smart to do the right thing, generous to feed hungry, loves your parents, and above all praises God's gifts/blessings to mankind.
Wouldn't it be enough to have this ideal? If he/she feeds the poor, forgives enemies, teaches God's word, would you not admire that person? Would you still believe that he/she doesn't deserve to enter the gates of Heaven?
I always pray to God, I love my wife and our son, I do not make enemies, I'm a Catholic but do not believe in the rosary. Did I hurt anyone? I love all God's creation.
Religion should not dictate who enters the Kingdom of God.
Martin Fazon
#justsaying #pointofview
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Sorry, Savillah.
Sorry that I don't even know if that's how you spell your name. The "h" may be an unnecessary flourish, born out of an incidental guilt that I don't even fully understand. I'm sure I have many apologies to make for innumerable mistakes in my life, and they will all come in time. But in light of recent events, the precipitators of which should have been addressed long ago, I have a monumental "I'm sorry."
Savillah, you were my mother's "maid" when she was young. You were not a live-in maid, you would have only spent the night if there was a cataclysmic event- birth, death, etc...You were tall, skinny, wore a simple "house-frock", eye-glasses, and- oh, yeah... you were black.
Well, wait- I know you were black, but the rest? That's my imagination. As far as I know....
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My dear, dear Brother,
It has been in my heart to write you, brother that I love, whom I have known all my life, whom I have known for a time, and whom I have not yet met…. That sounds kind of mysterious doesn’t it?! This letter is about helping you to understand some important things. You may have been wondering how my life turned out. Well, it has been quite a trip!
I have seen and done a full range of amazing things. I have experienced defeats and victories I did not imagine possible when we were “younger boys”.
I have been in places no one should go and also in places of unfathomable beauty. I have found love, lost it, found it again, and kept it; been hopelessly discouraged and blissfully happy.
I will forbear detailed descriptions, my brother, for something has...
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Swimming in the deepest ocean
Or flying, high up in the air
God always sees us
As we are
He knows we are
He is witness to all things we dare
He asks us to honor Him
With our whole heart, soul and mind
And to love every other person
Friend or foe, as our own kind
I picture Him
A friendly old man
Full of love, always kind
He is always trying to help us
To do each other
As good
As we might
Someday I hope
To be in His paradise
His Kingdom, may it come
It must be a joyful place
No more pain, no more sorrow
Not for anyone
In this we are all different
In our worship for Jahweh, our Lord
In this respect, everyone is playing
a different tune
a different accord
I wish we could all share in this
And together, someday soon
Play Him some music
Make Him...
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I am outside
with the sky being as blue
as it possibly could
the sun is shining
it is very strong
the weather is great
and gives me a feeling
as if nothing can go wrong
I know why the sky's color is blue
I know the science behind it
It would almost ruin the magic
If I would let it
Some things are better not known
they are best left undiscovered
their majesty would be taken
their magic not offered
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Dear Cardinal Tagle,
Greetings in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ!
Your eminence, I must go direct to the point in saying that my family is a victim of land grabbing by the Catholic Church!... This is the conclusion I now have after several failed appeals made to Archbishop Jose F. Advincula of Capiz, Roxas City, (Phil) ; and to Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas, President of the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Very briefly, it is about our family-owned lot (with TCT# T-25437) located in Baybay, Capiz, Roxas City, Philippines, but which is illegally and unjustly occupied by the Archdiocese of Capiz by building a chapel without our knowledge and consent. This illegal construction was discovered many years back when I personally went to the province to sell...
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Now is a hard time for the Catholic Church in Australia, with the first stage of a “Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse” held in the regional city of Ballarat this week.
Cardinal George Pell has been the focus of a lot of attention because he was a roommate of a notorious pedophile ex-Father Ridsdale. While the ex-Father continued to be moved around by the church to shift that problem on, George went onwards and upwards to become the Archbishop of Melbourne and then the Archbishop of Sydney (more of a sideways step I think) and then he really started picking up some interest in Rome where he has now risen to the dizzy heights of Head Honcho of Economy for the Vatican (some say he was just pipped to the pope by Francis!).
Even though His Holiest George has now been implicated...
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I often wonder if dementia was a person, what would I say to you?
So often I'm filled with hate, anger, sadness and frustration towards you, that I wouldn't know how to put it into words.
I think I'll start with I hate you dementia. I hate that you've made my kind, selfless, loving mum, into a person that can't express any of these things anymore. Instead over the years you made communicate with us less and not be able to share emotion.
I hate that you've made my once sociable mum, lonely, isolated and unable to communicate with friends and family.
I hate that you've taken this once independent, inspiring, and passionate woman, and turned her into someone that can no longer look after themselves. I hate that you've turned each of her children, family and friends, into carers, from...
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